La spirale infernale

This was a watchable enough TV movie in a train derailment sort of way. A Lifetime movie with a message. Actually it reminded me of those "after school specials" that were all the rage when I was growing up. Addictive but cheesy, over the top dramatizations of teens making bad decisions and then dealing with the consequences.

Here we follow promising track star and mama's girl Jessie Brenner as she heads off to college. Trying to fit in and be one of the cool kids she soon starts partying with her dorm-mate and before long slides into binge drinking and debauchery while lying to her mother about her constant partying and late hours. Promiscuity, car wrecks, topless internet videos, failing grades and general bad decisions soon follow.

Despite being a bit hard to take seriously, I enjoyed Nancy Travis as the Mum and Sara Paxton did a decent enough job as Jessie. Some of the party scenes were pretty hilarious and there were some continuity issues. I also found the ending predictable as Lifetime gives one last desperate attempt to drive the "bad drinking" message home to young and influencable viewers. 4/6/15

*Victoria BC as somewhere college town USA.

This whole movie is a public service announcement from MADD and other teetotalers. Lousy acting, no story line. Nobody could drink the absurd amounts of alcohol (10 to 20 to 30 shots or more, night after night) that these 30-old "college students" drink. Somebody should tell Lifetime Movie Network that Prohibition was repealed 100 years ago. Stop with the propaganda already!

Jessie Brenner (Sara Paxton) is a shy track athlete and the first college student in her family. Her loving mother (Nancy Travis) is a single widow. Shanna (Chelsea Hobbs) is her new roommate. She joins Shanna's party life gaining confidence with alcohol. She is befriended by straight-arrow musician Colin. Shanna introduces her to hunky Keith who she loses her virginity to on the first date. It turns out that he has other girls. Her academics and track suffer. She's avoiding her mother until she visits. Shanna convinces her to party in San Diego where she joins a wet T-shirt contest. Her flashing gets on the internet and even her little sister Sadie is affected.

These kinds of movies used to be called afterschool specials. The writing is very broad and somewhat bland. The narration is bad. Everything is done without subtlety. Nevertheless, the movie is exactly what it was always suppose to be. Sara Paxton is a charming enough lead. It could be a lot worst.

and others who claim they want to intervene, when all the American media does is glamorize substance abuse.

I'm not taking the moral road here, I lived it too, the person I was married to had to get better or die. This is not a reality TV show. It's real life for some people, and personally I'm sick of Hollywood celebrities talking about it.

That being said, this movie is okay: Sarah Paxton portrays Jessie, new college freshman who just wants to fit in. She is shy so she drinks to fit in and become popular. Chelsea Hobbes is good here as party girl. Hard to believe in 2011 a male writer here calls the girl a "party slut" (hypocritically), but why is it okay for guys?.

She at first does well in school, then gradually hanging out with her best friend Shanna, she parties out, even goes to San Diego, is in a video which somehow her mother finds (rather unrealistic, trawling the internet for these common videos could take years). But anyway. Nancy Travis is good as the Mom, who at first trusts her daughter, but then realizes the reality.

The ongoing hypocrisy exists. There are many of these films made "A Reason to Believe" (1997)which also involved date rape. The fact is this exists, and the decision comes from within.It is understandable college students want to bond, and going out and partying is at first a fun release.

No one can decide to stop drinking until they really want to. Some are addicts and cannot stop. If they are regular kids they end up dead in a frat house. If they are celebrities they end up on a boring Dr. Drew show. The fact is society in America has failed really on all fronts the war on drugs, drinking whatever. Most of it is political posturing.

The only decent advice is talk to the student, if you are a friend, or anyone who cares about the person. Judgment doesn't help, the media doesn't help, intervention rarely helps. It's up to the individual.

In the meantime don't watch reality garbage about Charlie Sheen and celebrities which continue to glamorize substance abuse. That's the problem in this country. Even people like Dr. Drew a medical doctor touting he wants to help the addict is really just making money off addiction (soon as I saw Mackenzie Phillips on his "HLN channel" show I turned it off).

The fact is kids are going to do what they want especially away at school. The parent chooses to discuss it or not. The rest is your own reality.

really no surprises here, other than the ending.

Bad directing, bad writing, bad acting, bad characters, bad music. Honestly, the stupidity never stops in this pathetic excuse for a movie until the credits stop rolling. It is exactly what a 120 minute commercial against abusive college drinking would be like, made by people who have no experience in the subject at all other than their own paranoia. This is truly a hideous piece of work. I realize that there are many real problems that revolve around young people abusing many different kinds of substances. I went to college, I've lived in a college housing area, I've seen the real thing over and over again. However this film really has nothing enlightening to share about the problems of youth substance abuse. It really has nothing genuine to offer to the viewer at all. The most you will get out of it is a few laughs because of its sheer ridiculousness. Well perhaps if you are a fairly naive person, with little experience around this real problem, you may then buy into the stupidity of this movie and develop prejudices and paranoia about the reality of its subject. God help you! Definitely there are some things that happen in this film that do happen in reality, however they are just not done in a way that is authentic to real human beings. The characters are all stereotypical cartoons with no depth. Therefore the films situations have nothing thoughtful to offer to this issue, and that is the biggest reason why this movie stinks so badly. If you want to watch a quality film about young people with substance abuse issues, that is actually somewhere close to the authentic thing. Then watch 'Prozac Nation' or even 'Sid & Nancy', or something like that. Avoid this movie at all costs, unless you just want to laugh at something really fake and stupid. This film reminds me a good bit of the infamous old trash film, 'Tell Your Children (Reefer Madness)' because of its lack of real knowledge of the issue it presents, and also because it is driven 100% by paranoia. 'Tell Your Children' may just be the worst film ever made. Let me just say that this stinker really isn't much better. The same thing that could be said about, 'Tell Your Children', could also be said about this movie, and that is..."It is not so much a movie, but rather a preacher, preaching about that which they do not know.".

1.5/10